PPA's Potential Profitability

The Quick Points

Electrum losing some spark. One of pickleball’s largest paddle brands, Electrum, lost a key player this past weekend, with Colin Johns playing his last tournament under contract with the company. It’s unclear the exact reason for Colin’s departure, however, as the paddle market becomes increasingly saturated with new brands, companies with larger marketing budgets will fight to attract the most household names in the pickleball community to be a part of their team - meaning big $$$ for the top players. He’ll undoubtedly lock in a lucrative deal with another paddle company, our guess being Joola (brother, Ben Johns’ sponsor).

Speaking of Joola. Leigh Water’s live courtside interview describing Anna Leigh’s singles struggles against Lea Jansen was basically free marketing for the brand that drops its new premium paddle today, June 6th. “2x power, 3x the spin” had Leigh thinking Jansen was a completely new player in what turned out to be one of the best singles pickleball matches this year. With that said, the comment really downplayed the strategy and athleticism Jansen exhibited through all three games.

Speaking of Joola x2…check out the review of the new Perseus paddle from Pickleball Studio.

New name, new owner(s), same team. Changes for a Major League Pickleball team…the Frisco Clean Cause are now the Frisco Pandas. And Dallas Cowboys QB Dak Prescott is now involved in the ownership group alongside Dude Perfect. Dak now joins an ever-growing list of athletes investing in the sport, including Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Phelps, Devin Booker, Jeremy Lin, Kevin Durant, John Isner, Justin Verlander, Naomi Osaka, Nick Kyrgios, Patrick Mahomes, Mardy Fish, and others. The name and logo do feel like a fun upgrade.

The constant and strong sounds of plastic smacking plastic is already a growing problem for communities, cities, and towns. However, as the number of players grows, entrepreneurs will seek out new ways to solve these challenges and capture the market demand. An interesting look into the burgeoning industry of understanding and controlling the effects of sound for facilities.

The Montana VA and Military Adaptive Court Sports will be offering pickleball classes to veterans of all ages. The social element of pickleball can be hugely beneficial in facilitating relationships. It is awesome to see 1,800+ participants in the Court Sports programs and if anyone has any contacts there, we’d love to help them get a clinic up & running in Austin.

Interesting to hear the Picklr CEO Jorge Barragan describe the evolution of providing more than courts in a box. Players are looking for community and serendipity through leagues, open play, and tournaments. This topic warrants a deeper dive into the different types of facilities, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on new models that emerge and preliminary results.

Breaking Ground

The Reset is beginning to track publicly available court construction data to keep track of locations, costs, and development projects across the nation. Our tracker can be found here.

Columbus-based Pickle and Chill announced plans to expand with a second location in Cleveland. The nine-court facility in Columbus was the host of Major League Pickleball back in October of 2022.

Cays Park in Coronado, CA received a $465k project budget to convert two tennis courts into eight pickleball courts (~$58k per court). Important to note though that these construction costs also include upgrades to the existing tennis courts and the nearby basketball court, so the cost of the tennis court conversion is lower than the $58k approximation.

A new multi-use development is being voted on in Coconut Creek, FL, with plans to build an amphitheater, pickleball courts, walking paths, batting cages, and food truck area.

The city of Keller, TX is building four additional permanent courts in Bear Creek Park for a total of $410k with an estimated completion date of Fall 2023.

Millcreek Township, PA has devoted ~$50k to repurpose tennis courts at Zuck Park and Ashbury Park. Two tennis courts at Zuck Park were converted into six pickleball courts, while one court at Ashbury Park was converted into two pickleball courts. Interestingly, the cost was almost even (~$24k each), which suggests that all else equal, facilities that choose to convert tennis courts to pickleball may be able to benefit from better court economics as the conversion costs don’t seem to scale linearly.

The city of Beachwood, OH, recently approved a $1.3M development project, of which ~$500k will be used to construct six new pickleball courts for public use. Beachwood (and all of Ohio) is on our radar with the level of private and public investment in pickleball across the town of 14,000 people.

In a mega-pickleball deal, the city of Fairview Park, OH approved a twelve-court development, costing $900,000, where they will convert two tennis courts to six pickleball courts, on top of refurbishing the existing six pickleball courts.

The YMCA partnered with the city of East Liverpool, OH to open two new pickleball courts on top of an underutilized parking lot in order to save on construction costs. The development ended up costing $86k, and will be open to the public but managed by the YMCA.

The city of Fall River, MA cut the ribbon on four public pickleball courts, which cost the city $400k to build on top of refurbishing existing tennis courts on-site.